Who's Reverend Wright?

I find it highly ironic and painful to hear the audio track featured below -- and I'm not even halfway through it yet -- that the Republicans raised such a fuss about Obama's affiliation with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and you've got guys like this speaking in front of congregations.

Warning: The following Youtube footage features potentially offensive and graphic language. Pastor Steve Anderson issues a tirade about homosexuals, and specifically Barney Frank, makes comparisons to Sodomites, and then explains why he "hates" Barack Obama.



Anderson preaches at the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. Regarding the hatred he carries in his heart (never mind he says, you know, he has love for all of God's creations, presumably with Obama included, yet boys will be boys and melt snails with salt), Psalm 58 becomes bastardized beyond compare. From what little I got of it, David's praying for God to carry out some vengeful, Big Brother payback against people that... perhaps they urinated in his Corn Flakes that morning. Maybe they were too busy being sodomiterrific and could give a damn less what David was doing, and all the man wanted was some attention.

Actually, we don't know for sure. The audio cuts off there. There's a sermon in mp3 format on the church site entitled "Why I Hate Barack Obama," but he spends a little too much time joking and giggling about political points. I'll give you extra credit and a cookie if you get something I didn't.

In all seriousness, I have no problem with whatever spirituality or religion they practice or toward whom they entrust to interpret verses and teachings. Religion, after all, needs all kinds -- the humble and the belligerent. Conveniently enough, people like Anderson want the government to stay out of their personal, professional, and spiritual lies until it comes time to cast their scorn. "Hands off my guns!" they deliver at the pulpit, condemning you too to keep hands from your unborn should you, for some horrible reason, have to consider the option to have an abortion.

Jesus, he says, wouldn't have supported socialized medicine at all. Maybe it would reduce the reimbursements He made when He chose to heal the sick, the blind, and the crippled -- without prejudice and for free of charge. As Chris Matthews mentioned in a recent broadcast on Hardball and later reminded on The Colbert Report, that America has had a very ugly and raw history with regard to political assassination. To give off-kilter individuals air time to reinstate this dire need to "retake" our country "at all costs" against whatever real or imagined threat being offered on the table, is to be as culpable as the man who takes that gun and bullet into hand.

That goes for politicians trying to score points within their party. That goes for news commentators audibly cheering "Real America" even at its most intellectually bereft hour. That doubly goes for pastors who forget that people bring recording equipment into church with which to ding you later.

If this were the real Communist, Socialist, Stalinist, Nazist world of your sick and twisted fantasy, then government thugs would have dragged you (me included, probably) into the streets to be shot at point-blank range. No Gestapo has revealed itself. No plot to overthrow capitalism has been cranked out via fax machine. We are free to think and say what we want, but to do so only until it infringes upon the rights of someone else. When you stand up in front of a church, Pastor, and proclaim how much you hate Obama and how you wish God would strike him down, you are declaring his life null-and-void of worth. I find it reprehensible that you goad those who believe in abortion and the death penalty, but you fail to recognize your contempt and malice.

I suppose, like putting "LOL" on the end of what would otherwise be a rude statement or a smiley, or more appropriately, praying for God's guidance during your sermon only to bastardize the Good Word's content to the lowest intellectual denominator, you think it can be excused.

I take pity on you -- that someone in Tempe won't be foolish enough to take you too seriously, and for you to learn a better way to touch the hearts of your congregation.

Anyway, readers, you be the judge while this fool celebrates and grossly misinterprets the wrath of God as permission to commit those same atrocities. The website features contact information. I think I'll ask him right now. If he writes back, I'll let you know.

UPDATE: The church e-mail inbox is full. You can reach his church via phone at (480) 248-4082. Be sure to give credit where it's due and Digg the original story from Twitter. Thank you very much.